Be still, my beating heart, this week’s Insider is here. Jesse Whittock back with you on the international film and TV news train, as the industry exits its quiet summer period and heads for festival season. Sign up for the full Insider newsletter experience here.
Strewth!: So it turns out Australians love watching Australian TV… they just struggle with where to find it. Not only that, they’re looking overseas for content to take its place. A major study led by Screen Australia, the first of its kind, this week revealed that while three-quarters of Aussies want more Aussie shows and films, half spend less than a third of their viewing time on local stuff. A third of them find Australian content hard to locate – a crazy statistic when you think about it. So what does that even mean for a country that is responsible for the likes of Colin From Accounts, Top End Bub and The Narrow Road to the Deep North? Well, that despite screen industries contributing more than A$11 billion ($7.8 billion) to the local economy in 2023/24 (the most recent year-long stat available), those in the TV and film worlds need to work out how – and if – they’re connecting with their audiences. Otherwise, they’re losing them to YouTube content creators and productions from elsewhere in the world. Australia is a major English-speaking market that has outsized impact in Hollywood, so this feels to me like a canary in the coal mine case – all the talk from global streamers is about local content, but if no-one knows where to find what they want to watch, what then? One company who might have some answers is The Set Up, the new indie production house that Colin From Accounts commissioner Alison Hurbert-Burns has just set up with Bruna Papandrea and Steve Hutensky’s influential Made Up Stories. As I revealed on Wednesday, the biz will focus purely on Australian stories for local networks and global streamers. It was notable Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers producer Papandrea said The Set Up would be “passionate about bringing top Australian television to audiences everywhere.”
Vertical Video Rises
Watch on Deadline
Nothing micro about it: It was a research-heavy week in the international content world, as Hernan Lopez and his Owl & Co company launched a major piece of work on the world of microdrama and vertical video that tore up some established wisdom. I’ll admit when I started writing more frequently about vertical a couple of years back, I was certain it was going the way of 3D television (which was uniformly dreadful when in vogue about a decade ago), VR headsets and Quibi, which died a quick death during the pandemic. I was wrong – it had already taken hold in China and quickly established itself in the U.S. – and now the numbers are backing up the evidence. And, boy, does Owl & Co.’s study paint quite the picture. It claims most projections on the value of the sector have ignored by the far the biggest revenue-driving sectors by tracking only microdrama. Whereas it pegs that subset at $4 billion, vertical video will deliver a mind-boggling $150 billion in revenues this year. (Not a typo.) Lopez, the founder of podcast giant Wondery and former CEO of Fox’s international channels biz, said, “Vertical is no longer optional.” He knows what he’s talking about, so when you’re finished reading Insider, immediately get your phone out and find an episode of My Step-Sister’s Secret Mafia Billionaire Wedding Revenge.
The Deadline Interview: Kevin Macdonald
Kevin Macdonald took the Fisher Stevens route when he made A Beautiful Obsession for Prime Video. He had barely heard of Pep Guardiola when he was brought onboard to direct a series about the legendary Spanish manager in his final seasons at Manchester City. Just as Fisher was able to glean something new about David Beckham through his ignorance of the England star’s football career, Macdonald got under Guardiola’s skin by using his disinterest in the sport as a superpower. “There’s something quite good about asking stupid questions,” the director told Max. >>>Read The Interview
‘100 Years Of Solitude‘ Finale
Nothing’s impossible: The series finale of Netflix’s Spanish-language drama 100 Years of Solitude drops on Wednesday next week (August 26). Ahead of that, Steward spoke with several of the show’s stars, and was first with a trailer. Iconic Colombian star Margarita Rosa de Francisco talked of the mindset needed to approach acting in a story “so many critics have said outright was impossible to film,” while Sebastián Osorio, Estefanía Piñeres and Emmanuel Restrepo offered more insight into what is one of Latin America’s biggest ever TV productions.
The Essentials
🌶️ Hot One: Chulpan Khamatova has been set to star in Alexander Molochnikov’s The Extremists, a feature-length version of the director’s Oscar-shortlisted short film.
🌶️ Another One: Soma, the feature debut from Belgian-Hungarian director Miklós Keleti, is shooting with Nuremberg actor Mark O’Brien and Heresy‘s Anneke Sluiters starring the sci-fi.
🔥 Fiery third: Hulu became the first buyer of UK-produced true-crime doc The Promise: Finding My Mother’s Killer and also acquired Australian LQBT drama series Invisible Boys from Banijay Rights.
🚪 Exit door: Sasha Bühler, one of Netflix’s top international film execs and whose credits include All Quiet on the Western Front, has left the streamer.
🇬🇧 Back to Blighty: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have decided to decamp from Hollywood and take their children back to the UK for an extended period of time, with Markle now linked to a new acting role.
🦬 ‘Minotaur’ mystery: Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Cannes Competition drama Minotaur is a live contenders to make the Academy’s Best International Film – but will it be for Germany or France?
⛰️ Summitting: The Zurich Summit has scored a coup with a strong lineup this year headlined by Backrooms director Kane Parsons.
💪 ‘Skin’ in the game: Skintown, the latest feature by Kieron J.Walsh, won the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival.
🍿 B.O. record setter: The Odyssey has become the highest-grossing R-rated movie at the global box office with $1.352 billion, unseating Deadpool & Wolverine.
🕯️ RIP: French film producer Nicolas Altmayer and Dior PR executive Mathilde Favier died in a car accident in France, local authorities said Tuesday. Altmayer was 61, and Favier was 57.
Photo of the Week
Puppet Masters – Producers Victor Knapp, Robin de Levita and Jordi van den Bussche, who are restoring 1,600 episodes of classic European kids’ TV show De Fabeltjeskrant, remind the world of their furry felt friends.